Mouldy medical records no more

Mouldy medical records have now been destroyed after months of scanning and transferring the data onto a computer system.

Around two years after mouldy records forced a staff walkout at a Newcastle medical storage facility almost all of the offending material has now been transferred to computer.

In 2009, 30 John Hunter Hospital staff walked off the job claiming medical records from the Cardiff storage site were making them sick.

The Health Services Union's Hunter Organiser, Bob Hull says nearly all of the mouldy records have now been dusted, scanned and destroyed.

"It's been a long long task but yes that project is nearing its completion," he said.

"I believe it's only got a matter of weeks to run and they will all be scanned and electronic records now available right across the hospital campus."

He says it has been a mammoth task entering the data into an electronic system.

"I think we're into our second year of the project.

"The process is that the mouldy record is dusted, but then put through a scanning system and then it's transferred electronic record rather than a hard paper copy record and then the old hard copy record is then destroyed."